Opinion: Syria, Turkey conflict may draw in other countries

Harry Sterling, Special to the Sun10.04.2012

Turkish soldiers stand guard in an armoured personnel carrier on the Turkish-Syrian border near the Akcakale border crossing. Turkey’s parliament authorized military operations outside Turkish borders if they are deemed necessary, a day after artillery shelling from Syria killed five civilians.

Harry Sterling, a former diplomat, is an Ottawa-based commentator. He served in Turkey and writes regularly on Middle East issues.

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NATO suddenly finds itself confronting the one thing it has tried to avoid: direct intervention in the Syrian conflict.

Although NATO countries have tried to stay out of the escalating violence and widespread bloodshed in Syria, it now is in danger of being drawn into the conflict following a mortar attack against a Turkish town from the Syrian side which killed five Turks, prompting Turkey to shell Syrian military posts in retaliation.

While the government of President Bashar Assad reportedly told Russia the incident was a tragic accident and Damascus was investigating what happened, Turkey called for an emergency meeting of NATO members in accordance with the terms of the NATO agreement that calls upon NATO states to come to the aid of another member whose territory is under attack.

Although NATO states condemned the mortar attack and deaths of Turkish civilians and stated they stood behind Turkey, they called for restraint to avoid further incidents.

The Turkish government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said it did not want a war with Syria, but had its parliament approve further military action against Syria as required, resulting in the shelling of Syrian military targets for a second day.

This latest flare-up between Syria and Turkey — following Syria’s downing of a Turkish reconnaissance aircraft in June — illustrates how dangerous the situation in strife-ridden Syria has become with its ability to draw other countries into a conflict that has already reportedly killed 30,000, a majority by their own government, since the uprising began in March of last year.

But regardless of this latest development, which places NATO members in a situation where they too could be drawn into the Syrian quagmire, the shelling between Syria and Turkey is only the most recent example of a civil war which has spread beyond Syria’s borders with outside governments and dubious groups taking the side of either the Alawite-dominated regime of President Assad or the largely Sunni anti-Assad opposition, which itself has multiple faces, some causing concern because of their radical backgrounds, including Islamist Jihadists, Salafi religious fundamentalists, as well as groups linked to al-Qaida.

The present fighting has shown no signs of letting up due to outside assistance both sides have been receiving. The opposition’s strength is increasing thanks to money and weapons provided by countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which want to overthrow the Alawite regime of Assad because of its Shiite background. Both countries are keen to stamp out Shiite populations in their own countries and the Persian Gulf, including Bahrain.

Although now condemned by most of the Western world and majority of Arab states, the Assad regime is far from alone.

Russia and China have been critically important in the United Nations Security Council in blocking attempts to pass punitive resolutions against the Assad regime — China because it opposes the international community intervening in domestic affairs of other countries due to its own problems in Tibet and the Uighur regions of China, and Russia because Syria under the Assad family has been Moscow’s key ally in the Middle East with massive Russian arms sale to Damascus at risk if the regime falls, plus worries over the future of Russia’s naval base at Tarsus along Syria’s coast.

In addition to providing Assad with a range of weapons, Iran has also been providing him with military advisers and trainers. The capture by opposition forces of several members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards last month — who claimed to be on a pilgrimage to a Shiite holy site — was evidence of Tehran’s increasing involvement in the conflict.

The recent killing in Syria of a top commander of Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah, along with several Hezbollah fighters, is a further indication of how far the conflict in Syria has spread.

Although Prime Minister Erdogan has a clear majority in parliament in dealing with Syria in coming days, he’s aware a significant segment of his own population is unhappy with his government’s policy toward Syria. Some of that is understandable because some Turks in the border regions with Syria have kin across the border or share religious affiliations.

To complicate matters, Erdogan’s anti-Assad policies have in turn worked to the advantage of Turkey’s Kurdish insurgents, who, with the apparent blessing of Assad, have escalated attacks inside Turkey over recent months, resulting in dozens of Turkish military being killed.

This increasingly murky and unpredictable situation is not something outside powers, including NATO members, want to be drawn directly into if it can be avoided.

However, the current tension between Syria and Turkey is a warning of just how easily an already dangerous situation can get out of hand with no one able to predict or control what may follow next.

Because of the dangers this represents for both the Syrian population and the always volatile Middle East it’s imperative that major powers reach an early agreement to establish some form of direct UN intervention to head off an even wider conflagration in the region.

Harry Sterling, a former diplomat, is an Ottawa-based commentator. He served in Turkey and writes regularly on Middle East issues.

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